HD Heads-Up: October 19

➢ “Pretty much one long OMG WTF” — that’s how The Guardian summed up TVNZ 2’s polygamy documentary series,Three Wives, One Husband, which will air 8.55 Tuesdays from October 31. It’s a four-part Channel 4 take on how 14 Mormon families live in harmony in a desert community when half of the men have multiple wives. “Apart from the fact that it wouldn’t have happened any other way, the documentary’s trust-gaining softly softly approach doesn’t make it any less extraordinary.” The Telegraph said this “demoralising peek at polygamy in action afforded the chance to gawp at otherwise ordinary Americans collectively brainwashing themselves” …

➢ Wahoo! TVNZ 2 will resume The Simpsons from the latest, 29th season on October 29. It will here air five weeks after the US broadcast, which the the closest the gap has been between TVNZ and Fox telecasts. Surprisingly, TVNZ 2 isn’t using the occasion to run the annual Treehouse of Horror Halloween special the same week …

➢ However, the season 29 premiere will lead in to the animated special, Michael Jackson’s Halloween. Fans had a chance to preview a 40-minute cut at Comic.Con. Reports MJ World: “It was amazing, ground breaking and totally ‘Michaelie’.” About two millennials and a mutt’s adventures in a land where the ruler hates music and dance, it features Jackson’s music and the voices of Christine Baranski, Alan Cumming, Jim Parsons, Lucy Liu, George Eads and Brad Garrett …

➢ Also new the same week will be: Father Brown, in a later slot (Prime, 9.30 Saturday):Jeopardy, in an earlier slot (Prime, 5.00 weekdays); The Brokenwood Mysteries (Prime, 8.30 Sunday); The Red Stag Timber Hunters Club (Prime, 9.30 Monday); and Car Crash TV, in a later slot (TVNZ 2, 11.30 Thursday) …

➢ The first pre-emption of the new season for The Big Bang Theory will be on Novem-ber 1, when TVNZ 2 re-runs The Bad Fish Paradigm. Normally, TVNZ repeats a recent episode when an “all new” season is interrupted but in this case it going’s all the way back to season two, episode one, which won’t even be in HD …

➢ The NZ and Australian Family Feuds will swap slots from November 2: the latter will air 5.30 weekdays and the former 4.55, in a “best of” season …